


Old Hands and New

by Adina



Category: Hexwood - Diana Wynne Jones
Genre: Alternate Futures, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-12-19
Updated: 2008-12-19
Packaged: 2018-01-25 05:04:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,427
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1632971
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Adina/pseuds/Adina
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It didn't happen this way.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Old Hands and New

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Poi

 

 

The palace was still familiar, Second thought, standing amongst the shattered walls. She'd lived here most of her life, after all, and even after the explosion she could still trace the lines of reception rooms, audience halls, offices. Here they had ruled--here they ruled still--directing the commerce of the galaxy, maintaining the Balance and controlling the pride and greed of the other houses.

First picked his way across the rubble, a heavy bundle thrown across his shoulder. When he reached her he let it fall with a meaty thump to the floor. The battered and very dead face of Fourth was as recognizable as the ruins of the palace. "After two hundred years he would rather be rebel than Reigner," First said coldly.

Second knelt in the dust, heedless of her clothing, and examined the body without touching it. "Did you terminate him?" she asked, looking up at First.

He shook his head. "No need. His own treason killed him."

"Good." She stood up, dusting her hands off. "We should put it about that he died a hero, preventing rather than causing the explosion that killed him." She considered. "I rather think he gave his life to save mine, in fact. I shall weep inconsolably at his funeral, of course. You will give the eulogy."

"Ah." First's smile was as brilliant--and dangerous--as it had been in those long-ago, dim days before they were Reigners, when he was the Reigners' Servant and she was hostage for her house's good behavior. "Our noble fellow, martyr to the cause of spreading peace and prosperity through the Balance, in whose name we must enact stringent new security measures to ensure that no future tragedy can threaten that which he held so dear."

She nodded. "I think we should announce that Finance was behind the plot. Marta has grown too powerful, too certain that she can put a thumb on the scale of Balance and tip it to her liking." She prodded the body on the floor with the toe of her shoe. "We need a new Fourth."

***

Vierran read the latest dispatch with a cold lump in her stomach. "Mordion," she whispered.

Somehow he heard her even in the crowded and noisy war room, coming up behind her to wrap his arms around her, just above her belly. Her belly, where their child was just beginning to show. "Vierran?"

"Fitela--" She let him read the rest for himself. Fitela was dead, like Arthur before him, defending Albion Sector--Earth-- _them_ \--against the many fractions trying to gain Earth's valuable flint for their own causes. Whether it was the rebels trying to carve out new powers or the Reigners clinging to their own never-stable rule was irrelevant to the dead, irrelevant to those who would not see their home destroyed to control a vital resource.

She wept and Mordion held her close, his own face, his tears, hidden against her hair.

***

The summons had become ritual, one that Vierran was repeating for the dozenth time--thirteenth if you included that first panicked request for her and Mordion to return from Earth because of--she frowned, trying to remember what that first crisis had been.

The ceremonial guards on the doors of the council chamber saw her frown and blanched, straightening already erect postures, pasting alert, attentive expressions on their faces. They each grasped the handle of one the double doors and pulled it wide for her.

Inside the newly-selected Hand of Reigners came to their feet. The new First, a woman Vierran vaguely recognized from the house of Finance, bowed low. "Reigner Emeritus."

The new Hand looked to be as useless as the old, though one or two of them bore watching; they had shown troubling signs of independent thought in their pre-Reigner days. She took her seat, a large, elaborate, padded chair opposite the First's much plainer one. "Thank you, First Reigner," she said, nodding for them to be seated.

***

"No," Mordion said.

"Definitely not," Vierran backed him up when the messenger looked to her in mute appeal.

"But First Reigner," the messenger tried again, "you must--"

"My name is Mordion Agenos," Mordion said very precisely, each word clipped. "First Reigner is on Homeworld, where she is, I hope, learning to guide the organization we left in her hands. And her Hand."

The messenger tried again. "The First Reigner--the new First Reigner--asks your advice and assistance in dealing with the rebellion in the Russe sector."

"I spent the first twenty-seven years of my life as the Reigners' Servant," Mordion said, and to the messenger's credit he didn't flinch or back away at the reminder. "I spent the next ten years as First Reigner. If I spend the rest of my life here at Hexwood Farm, without stepping foot on Homeworld or seeing or speaking to a Reigner, I might, just possibly, be happy."

"Second Reigner--" the messenger was pleading now.

Mordion deserved happiness, and Vierran wanted nothing more than to share it with him. The new Reigners would survive without help from their predecessors; after all, she and Mordion and the others survived their own much more treacherous initiation.

"No."

***

"Our work isn't finished," Arthur insisted, looking around the table where the five Reigners sat. The room was comfortable but not ostentatious, the sole ornament a low bowl of flowers in the middle of the table. This, not the formal meeting hall, was where they made the real decisions that kept the Balance and guided the fate of the galaxy. "There are sectors just waiting for a chance to break away, to gobble up their neighbors."

"Would you substitute a thousand years of our rule for a thousand years of Orm Pender's?" Hume--Martellian--asked.

"No, of course not," Arthur said irritably. "Yet I hesitate to pit the new Reigners against sharks waiting for the first hint of blood."

"We learned, as they will learn," Mordion said.

"We had Martellian, who had been a Reigner before," Arthur said. "And you, Mordion, who knew all the secrets of the old Reigners, and Vierran, who had the trust through her father of all the anti-Reigner factions." He didn't mention the near-superstitious dread and terror of the Reigners' Servant, that still cowed the easily cowable.

"I have been Reigner for long enough," Hume said. "I don't want to devote more of my life to the job."

"Nor I," Mordion added. Vierran only nodded.

"No one's asking you to," Fitela said unexpectedly. It was the first time he'd spoken; he seldom voiced an opinion in their meetings. He held firm as they all looked at him, at least at first, but then looked away. "I...know I wasn't much use as a Reigner at first. Arthur had been king, you three had the political experience, but all I knew was how to kill dragons. But I've learned a lot in the last ten years."

He grabbed the bowl of flowers from the center of the table, standing, clutching it to his chest and looking rather foolish. "Bannus!" he commanded.

The bowl changed and suddenly Vierran was the one who felt foolish. The Bannus was standing in the circle of Fitela's arms, in its--his--preferred form as Yam. Yam nodded at Fitela. "You can let me loose now," he said mildly. "I will not disappear." Fitela gave Yam a steadfast look, no longer the slightly foolish semi-adopted brother Vierran remembered, and then let Yam go. He stayed within arm's reach as the room around them dissolved into one of the largest halls, filled with a crowd of familiar people, the heads of the five Houses and their close relatives.

"We are met here, with the legal minimum of Reigner candidates, for the Bannus to name to new Reigners and name their correct order," Yam announced. "For the next ten years First Reigner shall be Fitela Wolfson. Second Reigner shall be Marta of Finance. Third Reigner shall be Siri of Guaranty." Fitela looked pleased at that, Hume rather less so. "Fourth Reigner shall be Sir John of Bedford." Sir John looked more shocked than pleased, but remained silent under Yam's imperturbable stare. "Fifth Reigner shall be Teresa of Audit."

Everyone including Hume and Arthur crowded around the new Reigners to offer their congratulations. Mordion faded into the background, edging away from the crowd. Vierran followed, catching up with him near the wall. "They'll do well," she said. She nodded towards the door, smiling. "Shall we?"

Mordion smiled back, the first truly relaxed smile she'd seen on his face. "We shall." 

 


End file.
